thinking about better work within better lives & workplaces

RelationshipPerformance (aka: RP) is science for thriving in the challenging and complex realities of today's work. RP is applicable to all organizations of any size and to workers and candidates of any profession, age or career path. Whoever you may be, you can leverage this empowering information to better understand workplace dynamics to reliably gain what you seek from work, thus bettering work and life.

As you begin your usage of rpPaq™ and the practice of RP, you'll benefit by knowing its foundational principles. This Quick Start series is intended to provide entry-level literacy of forces that apply to everyone universally in today's workplaces, although they are often unknown or not leveraged for benefit. These principles are presented in a manner that is intended to be (relatively) easy to consume (even though the underlying topics can be rather complex).

Each of the four parts of this series focus upon one central RP theme:

Part 1. The differences between people and organizations

Part 2. The nature of the relationship and the importance of agreement

Part 3. The fusion of performance, happiness, security and durability

Part 4. The synthesis: The Universal Work Role Framework™

Part 1: The Principle of Differences

Overview: Organizations and people are significantly different, so much so that neither tend to realize these extreme dissimilarities, thus fail to appreciate the vast work, workplace and career implications. This becomes even more true related to respective specific needs and what each sees as value or benefit related to work. Each party finds it is easier to produce expectations than to extend attentive empathy and understanding of the other.

Each party must remain alert, informed and vigilant attending to the other's needs, motivators and viewpoints. This requires disciplined diligence and attention, largely due to the fact that it will seldom be the obvious or most natural thing to do. However, being accurately responsive to the other parties needs is advantageous and reliably provides the powerful leverage either requires to best gain what they seek.

With an appreciation in place of the inherent and significant differences between the organization and the worker, we now explore “connecting” these two very different parties.

Part 2: The Principle of Work Relationship by Mutual Attraction and Agreement

Overview: Work must be very rewarding for both workers and organizations. It is essential for the two parties to create and maintain arrangements and conditions so that the right work fits correctly within the right lives. Doing so generates a special type of high quality relationship which remains durable by consistent mutual attraction.

For work relationships to be predictable and durable there must be high-quality information exchange, bi-directional validation and accountability in a manner that each other’s needs are reasonably satisfied. Validation generally requires explicit rpAgreement as to each party's acceptance and understanding of their respective accountabilities in accurately performing for the other's needs.

In parts 1 and 2 of the Relationship Performance Quick Guide, I've conveyed: • that work relationships take place between very different parties; • they're formed and sustained by mutual attraction and • for reliable attraction, and to avoid dangerous assumptions, work relationships must be constructed by authentic expression, dialog and validated by agreement. With this foundation of principles in place, I'll now share the next principle of Relationship Performance:

Part 3: The Fusion Principle™ of Performance, Happiness, Security and Durability

Overview: Too often work relations are not designed and chosen so as to include all of the vital components of good work: happiness, performance, security and durability. Though such a "fusion" of these four factors is sometimes seen as a random "anomaly;" by the practice of RP, it is practical for this fusion to become an expected "normality" in all workplaces and lives that seek betterment.

In high quality work relationships, work performance and personal work fulfillment are firmly coupled and should not be separated. What’s more, these are directly linked to personal work security and create the most durable relationship for a person and organization.

In Relationship Performance, a framework for achieving personal happiness in one’s work is known as being in the Flow Zone. A somewhat related framework applied by an organization to gain peak performance from a worker is known as “Personal Experience of Role Functional Satisfaction™” (PERFS™). The application of these "mirrored" frameworks by workers and organizations respectively is essential for mutually rewarding, high quality work relationships.

Having the three principles of Difference, Relationship Agreement and Fusion in place, we’re ready to explorea fourth Relationship Performance principle and introduce a holistic architecture for work relationships…

Part 4: The Principle of Synthesis™ and The Universal Work Role Framework™ (UWRF™)

Overview: The reality of work relations is one of complexity, percolating from differences, contexts, variables and change. Because of the many “moving parts” there are significant benefits for everyone in the workplace if they share a common map for understanding and “assembling” work role relationships. A well designed work role serves to improve everyone’s thought, design, communications and choices. This can also provide a means for continuous improvements and knowledge management across time. This is the purpose of the Universal Work Role Framework™ (UWRF™).

This organizing principle brings all the parts together in synthesis to offer a universally applicable means for achieving desirable “Fusion”: •functional performance, •personal work satisfaction, •worker security and •relationship durability. As in all positive workplace realities, the Synthesis Principle recognizes and instructs that functional performance is a shared (or synthesis of) responsibility.

In UWRF, the qualified worker provides “capabilities” that the organization “utilizes” to gain optimal yields in work roles. The single-most important “capability” a person brings to a work role is the right combination of personal traits required for experiencing personal enjoyment and related life satisfaction when performing the functions of the role. The Universal Work Role Framework provides a guiding blueprint for forming and sustaining healthy, sustainable work role relationships. It can equally be a useful schematic for diagnosing and discovering remedies to prevailing work relationship problems.